"forerunner" 


You are your own forerunner, and the towers you have builded are but the
foundation of your giant-self. And that 
self too shall be a foundation. And I too am my own forerunner, for the
long shadow stretching before me at sunrise shall gather under my feet at
the noon hour. Yet another sunrise shall lay another shadow before me,
and that also shall be gathered at another noon. 
Always have we been our own forerunners, and always shall we be. And
all that we have gathered and shall gather 
shall be but seeds for fields yet unploughed. We are the fields and the
ploughmen, the gatherers and the gathered. 
When you were a wandering desire in the mist, I too was therem a
wandering desire. Then we sought one another, 
and out of our eagerness dreams were born. And dreams were time
limitless, and dreams were space without measure. 

And when you were a silent word upon life's quivering lips, I too was
there, another silent word. Then life uttered us 
and we came down the years throbbing with memories of yesterday and
with longing for tomorrow, for yesterday 
was death conquered and tomorrow was birth pursued. 

And now we are in God's hands. You are a sun in His right hand and I an
earth in His left hand. Yet you are not  more, shining, than I, shone upon. 

And we, sun and earth, are but the beginning of a greater sun and a
greater earth. And always shall we be the beginning. 

You are your own forerunner, you the stranger passing by the gate of my garden. 
And I too am my own forerunner, though I sit in the shadows of my trees and seem motionless.